Cross-Training 101: Row Your Way To A Better Run

Spend some time on the rowing machine at your gym and reap the benefits. Photo: Scott Draper | Competitor

This exercise works a lot more than just your arms.

Rowers, known for their big arms, and runners, many with debatable upper-body strength, would seem to have little in common. But, there’s actually a lot runners can learn from rowers.

Rowing doesn’t just work your arms — a major misconception — it works all of the major muscle groups, says Josh Crosby, a former member of the U.S. National Rowing team who lives in Los Angeles. It targets the glutes, hamstrings, quads, core, back, shoulders and, of course, arms.

“It’s the ultimate cross-training,” Crosby says. Along with training athletes and creating Indo-Row, a nationwide indoor-rowing fitness program, Crosby has used rowing to train for triathlons and adventure races.

Increasingly, runners are doing indoor-rowing workouts for cross-training and injury rehab. Rowing offers a low-impact aerobic (or anaerobic) alternative to running, with most of the fitness gains transferring easily.

“It gives you the ability to preserve your body a little bit,” says Shane Farmer, the cofounder of Row Studios in Houston and the head coach of CrossFit Rowing.

That can be good for recovery workouts or for hard intervals. Both Crosby and Farmer say they’ll sometimes have their athletes do one day of running intervals and one day of rowing intervals, allowing them to go hard without wrecking their legs.

Sample Rowing Workout

Set your monitor so you can see your stroke rate, split time (the time it takes to row 500 meters, a common interval in rowing) or MPH.

Warm-up: 3:00 at easy intensity, 22–24 strokes/minute; then 3:00 as 1:00 easy (24 strokes/minute), 1:00 medium (26 strokes/minute), 1:00 hard (28 strokes/minute) and keep an eye on the split time or MPH to gauge your intensity; use that as a reference for the rest of the workout.

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